From Time to Time
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: The Doctor and Clara find themselves drawn to Todayland, 2036, to investigate the time energy being used to fuel Cornelius Robinson's almost-working time machine. Upon entering the Robinson household in the first step of their investigation, they are introduced to the eccentric, eclectic, extensive Robinson clan.
1. One More Adventure

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons. I watched MtR a few Sundays ago and noticed the connecting link between DW and MtR. It should be rather obvious what that is. :P**

"Clara Oswald, I am over one-thousand-years-old. I have traveled to thousands of worlds, meandered through hundreds of cities and forts and space-ships, encountered thousands of people, experienced so many cultures it's impossible to count, eaten about a billion different things, and this is the best cuppa of tea I've had in all those years," the Doctor said with a warm smile.

He and Clara were taking a break from escaping a centuries-old rivalry's clutches for a moment in the TARDIS's console room, leaning against her guardrails and enjoying a delicious cup of English breakfast.

Clara cocked her head, her dark brown hair all leaning toward one side, and considered her incredibly old but incredibly young Doctor's face. "That's an exaggeration," she said crisply.

"Is not! I'm not lying!" The Doctor said banteringly, taking another delicious sip.

"Rule number one: the Doctor lies, and you are. I know it," Clara said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yes, I give in to using flattery every once in a great, great, GREAT while, to get my way, but I am being genuine and honest and nice right now, Clara," the Doctor said, walking his stupid drunken steps over to her. It was the end of a nice long day of avoiding stepping in quick lava sand in the deep jungles of Gagloo on the eighteenth continent of Germoane. Frankly, the Doctor was feeling his age (not quite the entire brunt of it, but a lot) and somewhat tired. Clara, having packed an overnight bag, had proved herself a true Brit by bringing out the tea kettle she'd brought, and had unwittingly improved the Doctor's life tenfold. He settled next to his newest, latest, and most uncharmable companion yet (excepting Tegan) and hoped she believed him.

"No, I really think you're trying to pull one over my eyes," Clara said, not taking his bite. She sipped and said, "Eaten over a billion things?" She poked his thin giraffe tummy. "What kind of Time Lord metabolism do you have? Seriously?"

The Doctor's non-existent eyebrows lowered and he said, "I was complimenting your tea, Clara. Yes, yes, of course a billion things is an exaggeration, a big one, but I'm not lying about your tea!"

"Oh, I know. I make a damn good tea, if I may say so," Clara said, giving her Doctor a sly side look while she finished her cuppa.

The Doctor wrinkled his nose and muttered, "It's not that good of a tea."

"Now you're lying," Clara said mischievously.

Before the Doctor could stumble over his own words as he tried to think of a good comeback, the TARDIS threw her two occupants against the guardrails. The Doctor stumbled over his long legs and assisted Clara, who'd been thrown against the guardrail, facing it, and now would have a severe bruise across her waist.

"Whoa! Whoa!" the Doctor said as Clara became standing up, her two hands tight around the railing.

"Doctor! What is happening?" Clara cried out as the TARDIS began to spin around rapidly, jarring to the left and right and up and down every millisecond. Clara's words echoed across the console room, along with the sparks flying from the console and the spinning of the Gallifreyan circles. The entire room was like a tiny, distorted, disoriented planet, its rotation off and its actions violent and unpredictable.

The Doctor gave himself a magnificent leap to the console, sliding along the slick floor before catching on a lever. He hooked himself to the screen showing the outside of their blind path through outer space and caught sight of a force. He toggled another switch and said, "The TARDIS is picking up readings of a force; its pull is disorienting her! C'mon, girl!"

Clara slid carefully around the guardrail, trying to get nearer and nearer to her weirdo friend. "What is the force made of? Something strong, obviously, to pull the ol' girl out of her suspended state. Oh, ow!" and Clara fell on her bum and silently reached back for the guardrail again, hurrying to pull herself back into a standing position.

"It's like a time vortex, only it's not as strong or made of the same material," the Doctor said, scrambling to keep upright.

"So it's not like it at all, really?" Clara said, as the TARDIS's weight shifted to the back and she struggled to keep her center of gravity from falling.

"Yes, it is! Oh, you're so human," the Doctor said, wringing his hands a split second before he held tightly to a lever and a handle on the console to keep from landing halfway across the room.

"Oh, you're so Time Lord," Clara bantered back just as quickly. She caught on just as quick, saying, standing still for a moment, "You mean it's got stuff that makes you go back and forth in time?"

"Yes! Yes! That sort of thing, yes," the Doctor said, "someone is radiating powerful waves of time energy." The Doctor immediately fell to pulling the TARDIS out of the vicinity of the time energy, grunting heavily as he tugged on a lever. Clara held her breath and the lights flickered in the TARDIS, until finally the Doctor let go of the lever with a satisfied "HA!" and the lights stabilized; as did everything else.

Clara walked like a sailor on dry ground to the Doctor. "That doesn't happen often, does it?" she asked, rubbing her sore waist.

"Not really," the Doctor said, barely paying her inquiry a glance as he punched in buttons on a minute keyboard and bit his tongue as his fingers flew across a line of red buttons. "That time energy, it isn't of any origin I know of. And I know a lot of origins. I use atron energy in the TARDIS to power it. A light bulb uses electricity, one form of energy, and I use atron. This isn't atron, though, yet it reads as having the ability to penetrate the Time Vortex."

"The Time Vortex?" Clara wondered.

"Yes, Clara," the Doctor said, being fast and hardworking and kind and teaching at the same time. "When I say I travel through time and space, I mean I'm traveling through a medium outside all other dimensions. Like . . . oh, say, say, say, a car traveling through a tunnel. That's me, the car, or . . . well, the driver of the car."

"So there's an outer source of stuff that can be used for time travel, but it isn't Time Lord? What is it, then?" Clara asked, puzzled.

"I'm not sure. Not at all," the Doctor said, his voice growing ever more excited. He glanced at the scanner, which showed the outside of the TARDIS. His fingers danced across the console as he twirled and skipped around the console. Clara, concerned, followed him at a distant but fast pace. "Right now, I'm pinpointing the origin of the radiation."

"I've got a feeling we're off on another adventure very, very soon," Clara said.

"Yes!" the Doctor yelled, "nearly now soon!"

"Doctor," Clara said in her speaking-to-a-young-child voice, "we just went on an adventure."

"And on to another, here we go!" The coordinates to the mysterious force-emitter went into the TARDIS, and she propelled herself smoothly through the Time Vortex to follow the wants of her lonely, wandering Doctor.

"Doctor," Clara said, approaching him when he finally stopped to lean against the console and wipe sweat off his big forehead. "I want to go home."

"What?" the Doctor was alert immediately. His voice became quiet. "Why? Don't you want to go on another adventure? We have plenty of time." He grinned and spread his arms out wide. "In fact, we have all the time we could ever want."

"Another time, maybe," Clara said slowly, wanting to drop the bomb slower on him, "but this time I wanna go home. I got Angie's homework to help with and Artie's got a coupla friends coming over, which means I need push and pull him into tidying up his room." A pause. "I've got a life to live too, Doctor. Not just this life. Goodness, I like this life," she said, leaning against the console next to him as he stared, distressed, at the ground. She leaned her head out, her hair curtaining her face, and continued. "This life is brilliant, truly. But it's not all-consuming. I've got other things, important things, that I got to do as well."

He was silent.

"Doctor. Say something. You're scaring me when you're not saying something," Clara said, hugging herself.

The Doctor's mind was foggy with thoughts of Rose, how she wanted to spend her entire life with the Doctor, and wise Martha, who walked away before something bad happened to her, and Donna, who was unjustly ripped away, and Amy and Rory, who'd wanted to give real life a fighting chance against the traveling life. All the other lives of his companions paralleled against each other until he clapped his hands, breaking the cloud of memories away. "Oh, Clara," the Doctor said, mopping his hand through his hair. "If that is what you want, I suppose I can't be dictatorial and controlling. I'll take you back to England."

Perhaps it was how so easily the Doctor had heeded her request; perhaps it was the sad manner in which he said it. Perhaps it was just in Clara's manner to notice small human things about the Doctor, like how he didn't want to withhold from her what she wanted, but also wanted her companionship. She knew the departure of his last companions did a rough number on him, and even now all he needed was a friend, a student, a companion, a laugh-mate, someone to keep him from going quite crazy or off the beaten path totally.

She smiled softly. She'd be that friend right now. "Okay, Doctor. One more adventure. Nearly very soon," she said.

He gave her that sweet, blissful, childish smile that made her grin. "Oh, Clara Oswald. You're too good to this old man," he said.

**So that's the first chapter. Contrary to many people's opinions, I _like _Clara. She's a good companion, a mix of the best, with an excellent name and a timeless quality about her. I hope you liked it! (Please review? :))**

**God bless you!**


	2. Of Cornelius Robinson

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons. :)**

"C'mon. Where are we going?" Clara asked as the TARDIS came to a gentle stop, the noise filling the air: WhooRRROOO-whooRRROOO-WHOORAAA-WHOORAAA. She sounded eager as she dragged the excited Doctor to the door.

"We're in"—the door opened and the two stood across the threshold, and the Doctor clapped his hands together, saying, "America!"

Clara blinked and she stared starkly at the Doctor, confused. "America? All the places in the whole wide world and we've got America?"

"Midwest, maybe towards the north," the Doctor said, wringing his hands together in excitement.

"The Americans have discovered time-travel? Wait, what year are we in, Doctor?" Clara inquired.

"Twenty-thirty-six," the Doctor said, "and look what they've done with the place!"

"Are there any flying cars yet?" Clara wondered. "The traffic can't be nearly as bad in the air as it is on the motorways, can it?"

She and the Doctor spied up into the bright blue sky dotted with fluffy, cartoon-y clouds. "I don't see any," Clara said, sounding disappointed.

She and the Doctor looked at each other and the Doctor said, "Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, I do believe it has," Clara said.

Then they looked instead of to the skies to the place before them; Clara was surprised that the city wasn't falling apart from the failings of the American economy! Instead all the buildings were bright colored and modern looking, huge and spacious, clean and soft at the same time. The bright green grass was neatly trimmed, the crowd around them nicely dressed and seemingly happy, and bubbles full of peoples were taking off.

Clara blinked and took a step forward. "Doctor, they're traveling in bubbles. I'd just gotten used to telly booths being able to fly and now look." She pointed up, her index finger extended to prove her point.

"She's not an actual telephone booth; it's merely a facade, to disguise her," the Doctor explained emphatically before following the direction of Clara's pointing finger. "Oh look! My, they are! Must be on a schedule, for us to not have noticed before!"

"How are the bubbles not bursting? What kind of technology is that?" Clara wondered. She met the Doctor's eyes and asked seriously, "It's not some sort of technology that's been stolen from some other time and put here before it should be, right? Like, we're not about to witness history being distorted and time being put out of whack, are we?"

"While that is NOT a far off theory, I do believe that these human-transporting bubbles are indigenous to this time period," the Doctor said, before trotting towards a store, causing Clara to pick up her heels and scurry after him.

"First time I've heard the word 'indigenous' used in respect to a time, not a place," Clara said thoughtfully.

They approached a modern-day convenience store; Clara could only wonder what the Doctor was after; crisps and pop seemed unlikely.

"Time is a place, Clara," the Doctor said in his absentminded, flippant manner, as he opened the door and bid Clara inside.

"Wait, what?" Clara asked, frowning, stopping midway through the door.

"Um, um, never mind. I'll tell you about that later; physics, physics, physics. In the meantime, keep care to keep moving, Clara, we don't have all day," the Doctor said, beckoning her to move along inside the store.

"We do, actually," Clara said banteringly, hands on her hips once her Mary Janes were on the tiled floor. "Considering you've got a time machine on your hands, we can keep coming back and back throughout the day to make it last."

"Did that once. Don't recommend doing it again. Set lose a nasty Reaper when I did. Major shenanigans that day," the Doctor said, ignoring the surprised look on Clara's face as he approached a bright yellow pastel counter and said, "Hello there! Excuse me!" to a bouncy orange-haired employee. "Can I bother you for a mo?"

"Sure. What do you need?" said the employee, a young girl with big black glasses and a ready smile.

"Hi, we're the Doctor and Clara"—he gestured to his companion, who gave a tiny smile and waved a hello—"and we're quite new to this area. We're interested in your transportation bubbles." The employee nodded eagerly. "We're wondering who invented them?"

"Why, Cornelius Robinson, of course!" said the girl, whose name tag read 'Maggie'.

"Sorry, Cornelius? His name has corn in it," Clara said.

"There are far weirder names for this time period. Or from any other time period," the Doctor said, mystifying poor Maggie. The Doctor clapped his hands together and said, "What can you tell us, dear Maggie, of this Cornelius Robinson? An inventor, no doubt?"

"Only the best!" Maggie said excitedly. Her head bent as she searched her counter for a pamphlet. She pulled one up and handed it to the Doctor, saying, "He's world-famous, and he lives right here! Has his entire life; the entire town's so proud of him! Tourism has jumped up three-hundred-and-seven percent since he opened Robinson Industries!"

"Robinson Industries; he's opened a business? How big of a business?" Clara inquired.

The Doctor's big nose was lost in the pamphlet. "Obviously one big enough to become a world-famous one, Clara!"

Clara rolled her eyes as the Doctor became drawn in to the pamphlet. "I know that, Doctor, I'm not stupid. English teacher here, remember?"

"Are you trying to pull rank on me?" the Doctor said, peeking around the pages of the colorful pamphlet.

"I'm trying to prove a point, rather," Clara said. She turned back to Maggie and thanked her before the two time-travelers exited the store. Clara kept her hand on the Doctor's arm in effort to keep him from running into the street full of whizzing cars.

"So what's up with this Robinson fellow?" Clara wondered.

"According to this pamphlet, which is so very informative, he was an orphan until he was adopted by Bud and Lucille Robinson. He's a boy genius, a regular prodigy, winner of so many prizes and awards and using his prize money and the money he received from selling his inventions to make Robinson Industries, which is a big fancy name for an invention factory and R&amp;D center," the Doctor said.

"You read fast," Clara observed. Her eyes spared the Doctor and instead roamed the cosmopolitan frenzy of movement all around her. People walking with smiles, sipping tea from cups that adjusted the temperature in sidewalk cafes, humanless dog-walkers, and shoes that adjusted, like a mattress, to the comfort of the wearer.

"Oh, it's very full of simple facts and such, this info pamphlet, like I'm an idiot or something," the Doctor said. He pointed to Clara a spot of map on the pamphlet, showing the store's coordinates against those of the Robinson Industries grand building to Mr. Robinson's home. "That's where we're heading," the Doctor said, tapping Mr. Robinson's house with a determined finger.

He dashed the pamphlet over his shoulder into a metallic rubbish tin and Clara said, "What, you figure he's the one messing about with time energy?"

"Of course. Who else would dare to do so besides an entrepreneurial inventor?" the Doctor said as he rushed to the crosswalk.

"But we're going to his house instead of his work, with the R&amp;D rooms. Oh, oh, it wouldn't make sense to make this something of such an astronomical crazy scale at his work, now would it? In the comfort of his own home, where he can fail as many times as he wants to. Good deduction, Doctor. I might think you're starting to understand humans," Clara said. She grinned and waited for the light to let them cross at his side.

"Exactly, Clara. Also, I just want to explore the house of a genius scientist," the Doctor said.

"Oh, you snoop!" Clara asked him humorously.

The Doctor smiled at her. "You know me too well, Miss Oswald." The light came on and their thin fingers interlaced and swung back and forth between them as they crossed over to the other side towards the TARDIS.

Clara observed a map of the entire city in a park while the Doctor dashed about the TARDIS, scolding his beloved time machine and searching and ripping many a room apart. He emerged wearing a scooter helmet, riding a scooter, and holding a complicated, blinky-light machine.

"What is all this?" Clara asked, one arm folded over her chest and the other waving to the Doctor's strange ensemble.

"Think fast, Clara," the Doctor said, tossing her a helmet.

"We're taking a scooter there? I thought hey, with a time machine, you can ZAP! be at any place you wanted to," Clara said, though managing to fit on the dark blue helmet over her dark brown hair. She looked quite adorable in it as she went astride on the back of the scooter, her small arms looping around the Doctor for stability.

"I thought a look around the city would be fabulous. Come now; part of time-travelling is the sight-seeing, Clara," the Doctor said over his shoulder.

"True," Clara said. She furrowed her eyebrows as she pointed to the device in the Doctor's hand. "What's that?"

"I call it my Timey-Wimey Detector. It goes DING! when there's stuff," the Doctor said.

"We're using it to detect the source of the time energy," Clara said matter-of-factly.

"Indeed! Should be helpful when we're snooping around the Robinson house," the Doctor said schemingly.

"Or we could walk up to the front door, introduce ourselves as normal people would, and ask for where Cornelius's lab is," Clara pointed out both thoughtfully and matter-of-factly.

"That's—that's"—the Doctor was at a loss for any good reasons to NOT do that—"that's not the Time Lord way!"

"No, it's just not your way. I'm sure all the other Time Lords were just as nice and polite as you're _so_ not," Clara said.

The Doctor grumbled inaudibly and said, "Oh, just hold on!"

Clara gripped tighter and gave a delighted scream as they whizzed into traffic. The Doctor, despite his tendencies to run on the dangerous side of things, kept within many international, inter-galactical traffic laws. The Timey-Wimey Detector sandwiched between the two friends constantly blinked its bright lights, going faster and faster as they came down a delightful roadway to stop in front of a gate. It was a white picket fence. From it led a white paved path to the large Robinson Family Home. The front of the house had round, blue windows, a long stripe of blue windows, and 'Anderson Observatory' in bold letters under that. A large circular but flat gold dome topped it.

"Their house has got a face," Clara observed as she and the Doctor descended from their ride and shook their floppy dark brown hair free of their life-saving devices.

"All houses have personalities; theirs has just chosen to express itself," the Doctor said. The scooter parked away from the road, the two approached the large building. The gate, to their surprise, opened quite easily. The Doctor and Clara exchanged a surprised but pleased look. "Perhaps this is a good sign that they like visitors," the Doctor said hopefully.

Their walk on the white pathway was on an incline; it showed on either side more views and angles of the yard: spongy patches, all in different colors and diameters, spotted the yard. Topiaries cut as animals, famous statues, and decorative household items added a sense of style to the endless hills of green grass. "His invention business has done very well," Clara said; she interlinked elbows with the Doctor as they ascended the wide white steps to the front porch.

"Oh, indeed, Clara. It reminds me of how rich I could've been if I decided to patent and sell out all the things I've invented," the Doctor said.

"Oh, yes. I forgot. We're indebted to you for the invention of Yorkshire pudding and the quadricycle," Clara said, pronouncing that last word with a bit of derogatory humor.

"The quadricycle is a very important invention; it doesn't become you to speak so derisively of it," the Doctor said.

Before Clara could say a word more, a harsh, quick voice came from a tall brown flower pot. "Hey! Ring my doorbell! Ring it! Ring my doorbell!"

This startled both visitors, whose heads whipped to the opposite side of the voice when another voice called them to ring his doorbell "because that other doorbell is covered in germs, you will die if you touch that doorbell, hit this one!"

Clara and the Doctor each inspected the two flower pots, Clara with a bit more amazement. "I've got a man hiding in here with sunglasses," she said.

"Same here," the Doctor said, unsurprised.

"Ring my doorbell!" was the unison cry.

"What is your name, if I may ask?" the Doctor inquired.

"Yeah, what's your name?" Clara asked of her demanding doorman.

"Dimitri; don't ring his doorbell!" said the one by the Doctor.

"Spike; it's SPIKE'S doorbell you want to ring; right there; that little round button; just give it a tiny push," Spike demanded of Clara.

"Do you think it'd be too mean to knock on the door instead, tick 'em both off?" Clara said mischievously. She stood back from the demanding Spike, one arm crossed over her chest, the other with a fist at the end for her chin to rest upon. She looked toward her Doctor for advice regarding the situation.

"I've a better plan! We give them exactly what they want." A devilish twinkle in his eye spoke to her, and Clara knew exactly what to do.

"On the count of three?" she asked eagerly.

"One," he said, finger wavering over Dimitri's doorbell.

"Yes! My doorbell!" exclaimed Dimitri.

"Two," Clara said, her voice brimming with mirth.

"Ring it! Ring it!" cried Spike.

"Three!" and the two time-travelers hit both doorbells at the exact same time, making a double-sounding ring run through the gigantic house.

"They counteract each other; ring my doorbell again!" Dimitri yelled.

"No! Mine!" Spike said.

"Oh, get over yourselves, boys," Clara said as she joined the Doctor at the door, which began to crack open. Bleeding out of the crack were several purple, sponge-laden limbs, all attached to the body of a purple octopus with a large red-and-yellow eye. He groaned.

"Ack!" Clara said, taking a step back.

"Well, you must be the butler! Hello there! I am here to see Cornelius Robinson," the Doctor said cheerfully. His Timey-Wimey Detector in his hand blinked bright lights off and on.

The butler groaned, pointing back into the house.

"Oh, pleased to meet you, Lefty! Meet Mr. Robinson? Oh, yes! Yes, we'd love to come in, thank ya. C'mon, Clara," and the Doctor had to pull the sufficiently surprised and shocked Clara Oswald into the wide, open hallways of the Robinson Family house.

They followed Lefty at a few yards back down the hall. Clara said through gritted teeth to the Doctor, "Their butler is an octopus!"

"Clara, you sound startled. I never said the future wasn't weird; you should know that the future is weird by now," the Doctor said, tut-tutting.

"Okay. Hmm," her thoughts shifted, "who are we gonna say we are? Got the psychic paper on ya?" Clara wondered.

"Yes," the Doctor said, patting a purple coat pocket. "When I need to present ourselves, we shall be authorities on time energy."

"I'm not much of an authority on time energy," Clara said, keeping a fair pace up. Occasionally down the spacious hallway was a tight curve; many wide, tall windows let in slices of bright yellow sunlight against the wooden floor. It created a very cozy, clean effect.

"What's the Time Vortex?" the Doctor asked of her, like a teacher wanting to know if a student had listened to him.

"The medium which we travel through when we're travelling through time and space," Clara said, like 'duh'.

"See? Authority enough," the Doctor said.

Lefty made another groaning noise and the Doctor and Clara looked ahead to see a hunched-over, middle-aged man wearing long green pants and walking in an awkward stance. He was seemingly being dominated over by an orange-haired, bouncy puppet on his hand. She was yelling at him and being very angry and rude.

Lefty stopped walking (or slithering?) and waved an arm to the pair. He groaned.

However the grunting sounded as nonsense to Clara, the Doctor understood Lefty perfectly. "Hello there!" the Doctor said to the pair.

The man said, "Oh, hello," and waved, and the orange-haired woman slapped him across the face. To the Doctor, she said, "Ah, what do you want?"

"To introduce ourselves," the Doctor said, gesturing to himself and Clara. "I am the Doctor, and this is my lovely companion Clara," who looked slightly weirded out by the puppet, "and we're here visiting your nephew Cornelius, is that right? Their nephew?" He asked this of Lefty, who nodded.

"I am Fritz," the nervous, awkward man said, and pointing to the puppet, made her say very loudly, "And I'm Petunia. HE'S my husband! Why are you visiting Cor-ne-lius?"

"We're here to inquire about his time energy; we're authorities on it," the Doctor said pleasantly.

"You mean his stupid time machine? The one he's been working on for four years that's led to over nine hundreds attempts at FAILURE?!" Petunia yelled.

The Doctor stammered, "A—a TIME MACHINE?"

"Yes, that one," Clara said, smiling brightly, stepping up in the situation. "We're off to help him with it; nice meeting you. Bye!" and she dragged the Doctor off, with Lefty hurrying to take the front.

"What was that?" Clara asked, looking back over her shoulder once they were out of sight.

"A TIME MACHINE?" the Doctor said.

"He's gotta have to see a shrink or something," Clara said, turning back to the front and shaking a shudder off her spine.

"A TIME MACHINE?" the Doctor repeated very loudly.

"Doctor, you're on repeat," Clara said. "Why are you so, I dunno, freaking out? Time machines are your thing; you can deal with them no problem, right?"

"Exactly! They're MY THING! A Time Lord thing! Time machines aren't supposed to become mainstream, everyday inventions, like the car or the mobile phone! Time Lord exclusive! Invention not available in your country! Or your planet, for that matter!"

"This is gonna sound like a really stupid question, but why?" Clara wondered.

"Time is a very delicate thing, Clara," said the Doctor, gesticulating with his hands, as per usual, to make his point. "History needs to go as history is supposed to go; the future isn't to be messed with; people with time machines can cause a lot of trouble by ruining one event that then causes a chain reaction, ruining everything! Like a row of dominoes!"

"Don't you do that all the time?" Clara wondered.

"No! I visit different times—"

"You stick your honking big nose into everything," Clara pointed out.

"I am FAR better at restraining myself from ruining multiple timelines than humans—!"

"You saying that it's human errors that ruin the timelines?" Clara demanded, offended for the whole of the earth.

"I'm saying that people are eager and always wanting to put their mark on history, which isn't a mark it needs—"

"And it's not like you've never made a mark on history, Mr. Inventor of Yorkshire pudding and the Quadricycle?" Clara pointed out in a mocking tone.

"Time machines shouldn't be put in untrustworthy hands!" the Doctor said, shaking his hands at her.

"Oh, says the Time Lord who stole a faulty TARDIS!" Clara said quickly.

"You told me to pick her out!" the Doctor scolded.

"And wasn't MY mark on history a good one, doing that?" Clara demanded.

A groan from Lefty silenced them both and made them turn their heads to see a long tower of stairs. Lefty pointed up to them and explained to the Doctor what to do.

"Thank you, Lefty, for taking us this far," the Doctor said, nodding.

Lefty grunted something polite and then disappeared into a tube sticking out of the ceiling, making Clara screech with surprise.

"Well, he's gone," she said, once she'd caught her breath. She looked and groaned at the sight of the dozens of steps to be climbed. "Don't future households have elevators? Or can we use one of that tube thing Lefty just used?"

"Probably not the best idea, Clara. Those tubes could take us anywhere in the house. At least we know the destination these stairs will take us," the Doctor said, resolving the matter. Clara sighed and nodded and the two friends stomped up the stairs, purposely avoiding the other, and acting like two perfectly immature children.

The top of the stairs brought them to a decision, like a video game. A few large, imposing doors, weirdly shaped into squiggly ovals with topsy-turvy knobs, lined the hallway. To their left the hallway seemed to go on forever, a never-ending carpet-lined passage with many different entrances to many different destinations. Then to their left was one small door that appeared quite normal, un-special, at the very end of the hall.

"Well, Lefty was a little unspecific," Clara said.

"Indeed." The Doctor wrung his hands together in thought, as his mind formulated a plan. "I suggest that we knock on each and every door, try them, and waltz right in if no one answers."

"I kinda want to go through that one," Clara said, pointing to the completely ordinary door.

"THAT one?" the Doctor said, incredulous.

"Oh, don't go judging books by their covers now, Doctor. You're better than that," Clara said cheekily, appealing to his better nature. The Doctor shrugged and mused and Clara went forward and grasped the knob, turning it. It eased open with a creak, revealing a wide set of white stairs leading around a corner out of sight. Clara turned back to the Doctor with a mischievous grin, like that of an excited child, and he sighed and rolled his eyes in resignation as he followed her clip-clopping up the set of stairs.

"This place is so full of twists and turns," Clara said.

"Sounds like the TARDIS," the Doctor said, keeping close behind her. Their hands trailed along the walls, for there were no handrails. "She's got hundreds upon hundreds of rooms hidden in her."

"Believe me, if anyone knows that, it's gonna be me," Clara said, smiling as they came around a turn. This led them up straight to a room that took up the entire big gold-haired dome of the Robinson household. Sunlight bathed them from the extensive windows in the ceiling. The atmosphere was busy, but light, airy. And as they came to the top of the stairs, their view of the room expanded to show the entire room's spacious floor covered in dozens of inventions. Clear tubes of strange liquids, brightly colored buttons, and flashing lights and squeaky noises emitted from many of the shiny pieces of technology.

"Oh, wow, it's like Tomorrowland in here," Clara said, amazed. She'd been to the far corners of the universe, seen many a piece of foreign, high-tech ingenuity, but it still amazed her what her own species, what her home planet, could produce.

"It's funny that you should say that," the Doctor said beside her. His good mood had returned and he was in a state of bliss among these inventions. "This place we're in is called Todayland."

"So tomorrow is going to be Todayland tomorrow?" Clara wondered.

"Of course," the Doctor said.

"Makes total sense," Clara said in an amused voice as they finished surmounting the stairs.

"Oh, it actually does," the Doctor said, "as long as you don't lose a word here and there, most any complicated sentence will make sense."

Their attention was diverted from their speculation on sentences by a series of grunts and muttered words about 'calibration issues' and the 'coupling to the power source might not be strong enough for the energy to surge through—that might be a problem'. A long man with a long white lab-coat was hidden on a creeper under a sort of . . . vehicle. It was shiny, the body red and bulbous, the top a big clear dome. Extremely modern and future-esque. Also, spurting smoke and smelling of an evil odor of oil, peanut butter, and a strange chemical compound.

"Excuse me, sir," the Doctor said, hurrying over to the man.

"Um . . . yes?" the man asked, obviously distracted.

"Hi. Yes, I am the Doctor and I'm here with my companion, the lovely, studious, amazing Clara Oswald, to see a famous Cornelius Robinson. I'm under the impression that that is who I am speaking to right now, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong and send me off, if you would, in the direction to the real world-famous scientist and inventor, Cornelius Robinson," the Doctor said.

Clara stared at him, amazed that he could talk so rapidly and so to the point and yet so circuitously. The Doctor didn't notice her but instead squatted next to the machine the man was working on. His thin fingers stroked the top of the shiny exterior, his mind obviously processing and comprehending that this was the time machine that had raised so much alarm in himself.

Cornelius Robinson shoved himself out from under his invention. Oil spots covered his rectangular face, and the second he could sit up, he fetched a lovely monogrammed handkerchief out of his lab coat pocket and set to cleaning up his circular glasses.

He was clearly stunned.

**Thanks for reading! (Review?) May God bless you!**


	3. Why Not?

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons.**

The Doctor watched this calm, methodical move and said, his hands gesticulating as they do, "I'm not sure how much of that you heard."

"I heard all of it; my eyesight might not be its best but my hearing is excellent," Cornelius said. He finished at working the tough greasy spots out of his glasses before replacing them on his nose and turning to face the youngish looking Doctor and Clara, who waved at him. He blinked and said, pointing to each in turn, "The Doctor, Clara?"

"Yes, that's right," the Doctor said, nodding in affirmation.

"Lefty let us in," Clara explained. "According to one of them tourist pamphlets, you're the man who basically created this town. Put it on the map. Quite literally, too."

Cornelius chuckled to himself. "I can say that my inventions have become a national success."

"Your mind up there," the Doctor said, tapping his own temple, "must be so fascinating. The imagination in there as well."

"Those bubbles are really cool; I'm going to have to try those," Clara said, nodding.

"You're here to ask me about my inventions?" Cornelius asked curiously, leaning his arms over his legs.

"About one in particular, actually," Clara said, as the Doctor jumped to his feet.

"Do you mind if I take a peek under there? I am deadly fascinated with time machines," the Doctor said, sounding very curious.

"Um . . . sure. But if you don't mind, please don't touch anything. Look, don't touch. Sort of like a museum," Cornelius said.

The Doctor dove under the time machine, kicking the floor to get himself under it. He hadn't waited for Cornelius to get off of the creeper before he dove in to explore the underside of Cornelius's invention.

"It's awfully shining looking," Clara commented, running a hand over it delicately, as if it was an elegant vase and a beautiful pet at the same time.

"I put on a substance deflector on it," Cornelius said, patting his time machine. "It resists water, oil, any compound with grease in it, really, and jelly."

"Jelly?" Clara asked, surprised and intrigued. "Is there always a big chance for jelly to spot on it?"

"I've got an old invention, one that is supposed to portion the right amounts of peanut butter and jelly on a sandwich. I still haven't gotten all the proportions right," Cornelius said. "It's been on my mind for thirty years."

"Thirty years? And you still haven't perfected it?" Clara wondered,

Cornelius chuckled. "My reviews are always different. As it turns out, some people like a lot of peanut butter, and some people like a lot of jelly."

"Then it's a problem with the people, not the invention," Clara pointed out. "The reason you're constantly trying to improve it is because you're trying to please everyone. It can't work that way."

Cornelius looked thoughtful. "Who should I be trying to please, then?" he wondered.

"Who'd you make the invention for in the first place?" Clara asked.

"To please the masses, but in reality, for myself," Cornelius said, looking distant, like he was thinking of a past memory.

"How much peanut butter and jelly do you like on your sandwich?" Clara asked, amused.

"More jelly than peanut butter," Cornelius said, pleasantly surprised by this Doctor's friend.

"I am examining the bottom of a very dangerous time machine, and you two are discussing condiment ratios?" the Doctor's voice came up from under them, very muffled.

"So what if we are?" Clara said, smirking before squatting and half-crawling under the time machine. "What are you even doing done here?"

"Careful—don't touch!" Cornelius said hurriedly, slightly horrified.

The Doctor's face was half lighted, half hidden in shadow. A bright light from the connected systems of the time machine shone onto half of his face; dark shadows covered the other half. His eyes were focused on the machine above him, though he heard Clara's comment and decided to address it. "I am examining the source of the time energy," the Doctor said. This was followed by the sound of his sonic screwdriver whirring.

"Time energy?" Cornelius asked, standing up and looking down, surprised, at his two companions.

"Yes," the Doctor said, "quick, move back, Clara!"

Clara jumped back quickly and the Doctor wheeled himself out from under the time machine, looking deeply annoyed and impressed at the same time.

"It _is_ time energy from the Time Vortex," the Doctor said. He looked, greatly displeased, at Cornelius, who was confused as to why the Doctor was so greatly vexed, and also why the man knew about the time energy. The Doctor stood up and faced Cornelius, his big ol' nose wrinkled up, showing his frustration. "How did you harness time energy? Where did you get it?"

Cornelius looked from one of his strange visitors to the other. The Doctor, a concerned genius, and Clara, confused but prone to knowing the enormity of what had provoked the Doctor.

"Who did you say you were, again?" Cornelius asked.

"I am the Doctor. I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, which is gone from this world. I am over a thousand-years-old, and I have a time machine, something called a TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimension In Space, with which I have traveled through time and space around this universe and galaxies; I consider myself something of a time expert, and I say to you, man, How did you harness that time energy, and where did you get it?"

A silence followed, with Cornelius attempting to find words, and losing. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. Then he said, "You have a time machine?"

"As a matter of fact I do," the Doctor said, scowling at Cornelius for having decided to jump on this point of his rant.

"It works?" Cornelius asked, his mind still comprehending the idea that his almost thousand attempts could mean something in the end: There was a possibility of a time machine working. There was proof.

"Of course it does. I travel the universe in it, or did you forget that part?" the Doctor sniffed.

"Doctor," Clara said warningly.

"HE is ignoring my questions," the Doctor said, sounding like a five-year-old.

"Can I see it?" Cornelius asked excitedly. He seemed like a kid in a candy store, overwhelmed by the possibilities and wanting to dive in further.

"Why not?" Clara asked.

"WHY NOT?" the Doctor half-screeched.

"What's the problem with showing him the TARDIS, Doctor? Goodness knows, maybe a successful result will give him encouragement," Clara said.

"This is my nine-hundred-and-ninety-fifth attempt at building a time machine," Cornelius said, a little sadly.

The Doctor stared at him with an outraged, pouting face. Clara stared at him in shock. "You've made nine-hundred-and-ninety-five of these?" she said, pointing to the shiny red machine.

Cornelius nodded, looking horrifically exhausted. "I have all of them encased in my garage," he said. "All the failures."

"How long you been doing this?" Clara asked, still astonished.

"Five years, maybe a little less."

"Have you gotten any sleep at all? 'Cause you look like you're about to drop," Clara said.

"I'm due for my break in a minute," Cornelius said.

And as if brought on by his words, a cheerful woman's voice rang out through some speakers in the corners of the brightly lit room. "Cornelius, supper is ready!"

"Franny, I'll be there in a minute. I have a couple of—"

"Cornelius Robinson, you get down here right now. You've been in your lab since five o'clock this morning with barely a bite to eat. I won't have my husband succumb to exhaustion and malnutrition. Nuh-uh, not under my roof," the woman's voice said firmly but kindly.

Cornelius looked from the half-furious, half-pout-y Doctor to his incredulous companion and sighed. "I guess I'm outnumbered," he said, though he didn't sound like he minded taking a break for a meal. "Doctor, Clara, would you like to join me and my family for a meal?"

The Doctor was too speechless to find the tact to find words to reply and accept. Fortunately, Clara could recover herself and be polite (she was British, after all). "We wouldn't mind at all." At least the Doctor couldn't throw himself in a hissy Time Lordian rant at the dinner table. The Time Lord had dined with kings, queens, aristocrats, presidents, tyrants, dictators, and overlords. Certainly he could behave himself at the dinner table of a famous inventor . . . whom he was absolutely infuriated with.

**Next chapter: SO MANY ROBINSONS. XD. **

**Thanks for reading! Please feel free to drop a review! God bless you!**


	4. The Dining Room Scene

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons. Thankie for the reviews, darlings! :)**

Lefty led the three of them through the halls. Somehow, Clara was able to keep up quite the conversation with Cornelius as they walked down the hundreds of steps and through dozens of halls. They talked about his life, how he came from an orphanage and was adopted by a famous scientist and her husband, who then encouraged his growth in the scientific fields.

The Doctor, meanwhile, kept a pace behind Lefty, his arms folded in a gruff stance and his lips folded into an imperturbable pout. He grumbled all the while, saying what was the point of having a time machine if he was forced to walk through a thousand halls, and why couldn't they go through the world-famous inventor's fabulous traveling tubes instead, and of course humans would side to go stuff their gobs full of nutritious chow rather than discuss matters of ethics concerning time and space and the whole of reality around them that could break apart the world as they knew it if the humans poked their noses into and messed up the time-stream, but by all means let's go have dinner. I hope it's spaghetti.

Lefty threw the Doctor a strange, big, bug-eyed look.

The Doctor chose to look very childish.

Their dining room, like the rest of the house, had a tall ceiling. The table was long, surrounded by chairs filled with Cornelius Robinson's family—and my, there was a lot of them.

"So, I take you don't just live here with your wife and son?" Clara said, once she'd seen the vast array of the Robinson clan.

"No. I live here with my wife and son, and then my parents, and then—well, just let me introduce you all," Cornelius said.

Clara turned and walked backwards as she faced the Doctor. Her hands shook as she tried to awaken his happy side. "Doctor, c'mon. Time to put on your big boy face and be cheerful."

"I'm not in the mood, Clara. Really, there isn't any point," the Doctor said.

"Ha! There is a point! I can see it! You're just trying to be very disagreeable," Clara pointed out, sounding all too gleeful for the Doctor's mood.

"Clara, would you stop it?" the Doctor muttered discreetly, though his eyes saw the large table of people before him and made him lower his voice further.

"Stop what?" Clara asked. She knew far too much about him and had him playing her game. Her brown eyes looked very mischievous, her smile full of a dangerous humor.

"Talking to me! Stop talking to me!" the Doctor said.

"I can't hear you," Clara said in a terribly annoying sing-song-y voice. Oh, she was enjoying this too much! She cupped a hand to her ear and said, leaning closer, "What'd you say, Doctor?"

The Doctor's mood snapped and he turned to face the table of expectant faces with a lit-up smile. "Hello, Robinson clan!" he said, clapping his large hands together and sounding pleased to meet them. Clara stood by his side, congratulating herself on a job well done. At least he could now act pleasant before all these people. He could rant against Cornelius Robinson about his stolen time energy later but in the meantime, he could act courteous to the clan in front of him.

Lefty escorted the Doctor and Clara to spots around the table. Clara found herself between two bickering siblings. Something about paint and a large hat was being yelled about over her short head. She felt very small in her large seat, but her attention was caught by all the activity happening around the spacious table. Her meals usually weren't so loud or focused on conversation. It made her curious as she spied around the table.

The Doctor sat across from her between two brothers, both dark-haired, one muttering on a phone about a supreme pizza delivery, and the other examining a tiny cannon full of Italian meat. Apparently he hadn't worked out all the kinks, as it was irritating him with its problems and inabilities to launch the meat to no end.

Cornelius stood up and said, looking from left to right to address both of his guests, "Doctor, Clara, welcome to the Robinson Clan's Family Dinner Table." He shook his hands together as he surveyed the entire table. "I suppose introductions are in order."

"Yes, I think they are," a black-haired woman said matter-of-factly beside him.

Cornelius chuckled and sat back down, said to the Doctor and Clara as he wrapped an arm around the woman's fairly tiny waist, "This is my wife, Franny."

"Hello," Clara chirped.

"You're the woman from the speaker," the Doctor said.

"Indeed I am," Franny Robinson said, accepting this acknowledgement as a compliment. "I run the household, obviously. What I say, goes."

"That's true," Cornelius said. He didn't sound at all like he minded.

Franny pointed to a black-haired young boy talking to someone underneath the table. She grabbed him by his collar and brought him up. He looked extremely perplexed and displeased by this new development. "Mom, I am trying to discuss something with Carl!" he grumbled.

"Wilbur Robinson, we have guests. And Carlllll—" Franny bent down so her head was under the table, "you're supposed to be bringing out the shepherd's pie."

Curious and weirded out, Clara peeked under the table. She saw many different legs all covered in different colors and styles of pants and a skinny, golden robot, who appeared humbled by Franny and attempting to hide his annoyance because of his conversation with Wilbur being interrupted. "Yes, Mrs. Robinson," Carl said. He sighed and crawled out from under the table. Clara's head popped up and her face was the only surprised one as Carl stood up and disappeared through a door with a golden doorknob. Nobody else seemed surprised, or even like they had noticed him at all.

Clara turned her attention back to Franny. She tweaked a point on her son's head of hair and said, "This is my and Cornelius's son, Wilbur. He can get into trouble a lot—"

"Actually, the idea of what trouble I get into is very subjective. I could be going on adventures, exploring new terrain, trying out a new experience—"

"He's also very persuasive," Franny said, unfazed by her son. "Wilbur, these are your father's guests . . . the Doctor and Clara?" Franny gave her husband some raised eyebrows.

"They're time experts," Cornelius said at the exact same time that the Doctor said, "We're time experts," and Clara said, "Yeah, those are our names."

"Very nice to meet you," Wilbur said, nearly climbing onto the table to reach over and shake Clara's hand. She returned the handshake heartily. "Are you here to help Dad with his time machine?" he asked the Doctor as he shook his hand.

The Doctor hesitated a lot. Lots of muttering and grumbling and speculating and it came out a lot like this: "Well . . . um . . . helping, well . . . time energy is a very finicky thing . . . I supposed we'll just try to figure it out . . . Um, Cornelius, why have you attempting make a time machine so many times?"

"Well, because I've failed so many times," Cornelius said, sounding a little surprised. He was in the process of laying a napkin over his lap and leaning out to try to see if Carl was coming along with supper soon. He met the Doctor's eyes and said, "I don't give up. I modify the idea, but I don't change what it is. I—"

"Keep moving forward," his wife and son said in unison, almost nonchalantly, as if they'd known the words he'd say for a long time.

Cornelius chuckled. "Exactly."

"What does that mean, 'keep moving forward'? Are you trying to go to the future in your time machine, for a particular reason or somethin'?" Clara wondered.

"No, actually. It's a phrase I came up with when I started up Robinson Industries," Cornelius explained. "There was a lot of building issues and my inventions suffered on the account I couldn't pay them all the attention they needed. A lot of my time was devoted to the company. So there were a lot of problems and failures. 'Keep moving forward' means that no matter how many failures and problems there are to face, you need to keep moving past all that. You have to let go of your past and move on with the future." Cornelius smiled to himself, as if he was remembering some old fond memory.

"That's a beautiful thought," Clara said kindly.

"It's a good idea, that is what it is," the Doctor said.

Clara passed him a sad, sympathetic smile. "Funny, you of all people, saying that," she said softly.

No words were able to pass between them any further as the kitchen door flew open and a parade of Carl and tinier versions of him, maybe half a foot tall each, came hurrying into the dining room. Each one hopped on their tiny, springy legs onto the table and placed the delicious, steaming plates of shepherd's pie in front of the patrons. Some others sprung up with pitchers of water, wine, and milk and skipped among the glasses and vases of flowers to bend over the cups and pour in the preferred drink. Clara was pleased and waved her little hand to stay before the mini Carl could overflow her cup full of water.

"This looks excellent, Carl," Franny said appreciatively as the head robot himself poured the drinks for Cornelius and Franny.

"Oh, thanks. It was just an old family recipe, from Bud's files," he said. He gave an inclination of his head and said, "Cheers, everybody! We'll be back soon with the second course!" Then he gave a sharp, piercing whistle that caused all the tiny Carls' heads to turn to him. They skedaddled back to the kitchen, their large pitchers of drink shifting back and forth in their tiny hands.

"Those"—Clara said, nodding to the last exiting mini Carls,—"are amazing."

"One of my more practical inventions," Cornelius said, dipping his spoon into his shepherd's pie. This prompted Clara to do the same. Oh, did it remind her of good, old-fashioned English cooking. Mashed potatoes covered a delicious gravy of chunks of stewed meat and thick, mealy carrots. She tasted it and closed her eyes and sighed. Tasted as good as it smelled and looked, it did.

She looked up to pay attention to the conversation again. Finding no conversation, as everyone was fully absorbed by Carl's delicious shepherd's pie, she piped up while she waited for the spoonful of pie in front of her to cool down. "So, who is everyone else around here?" she wondered, her eyes bouncing from family member to family member.

"Well, these two boys are my brothers," Franny said, gesturing to the two dark-haired men that sandwiched the Doctor. "Art, the fabulous pizza man"—the man, dressed like a real-life superhero, waved briefly at Clara before turning back to the conversation over thick versus thin crust pizza on his phone—"and that's Gaston." This man was concentrating on a small cannon. He looked up and waved at Clara. "Hello, guest of brother-in-law. Pleased to meet you." His attention quickly snapped back to his little toy.

Clara ate her spoonful and turned to stirring her fluffy mashed potatoes all around her chunky gravy. "They're awfully busy," she observed.

"Yes. Yes, they are," Franny said. She took a delicate sip of water and said to her husband, "Your turn. He's got a lot more relatives here," she explained to Clara.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was busy trying to eat his shepherd's pie undeterred and avoiding getting hit by chunks of carrot by Gaston, who hardly noticed that his aim was largely centered around the Doctor's nose.

Cornelius pointed around the table. "Mom, Dad, this is Clara. Clara, Lucille and Bud Robinson."

Lucille had a big foofy ball of pink hair, and she waved from behind a circular pair of glasses. "Hello there!" she said.

Bud possessed a protruding chin, big ears, tufts of hair on the sides of his head, and glasses. He waved also to Clara. "Hi, there, young Clara! Are you enjoying your stay here?"

"I think so, yeah," Clara said sincerely.

"Cornelius, have you given her the tour of the house yet?" Lucille wondered.

"Um, no. I haven't had the time to—" Cornelius started.

"Oh, let Bud and me do it!" Lucille said.

"Brilliant idea, Lucille! Right after dinner!" He turned to Clara, whose eyes were widened, her mind confused. "What do you say, Clara? Wanna look around the estate?"

"Oh, it's an estate now?" Clara wondered.

"Sure it is!" Bud said enthusiastically.

"You haven't seen the bouncy backyard yet, have you?" Lucille inquired.

"Ooh! Or Franny's musical frogs!" Bud interjected excitedly.

"Oh, I forgot about those!" Lucille said.

"Excuse me, yeah, sorry," Clara said, leaning forward so she could catch every word, "musical frogs? Like, actual real-life frogs trained to play instruments?"

"They can sing, too!" Bud said, shocking Clara further. "Franny works miracles with them!"

"Oh, it's nothing," Franny said faux-modestly. She was really quite pleased with the compliment.

"Don't forget the garage!" Lucille said to Bud.

"And the lab!" Bud said, pointing an index finger into the air.

"I was in there already, actually," Clara said quickly, before someone could interrupt her.

"Good! That gives us more time to check out the tiny frog bar outside!" Bud said.

"It's the cutest thing," Lucille said. "The frogs process their little drinks differently than humans, so they don't get so drunk."

"Really? Would've thought they'd get drunk faster, since they're smaller," Clara said falteringly. It had never occurred to her that frogs enjoyed a delightful little cocktail every now and then, never mind how fast they could get drunk.

"It's still an experiment I'm working on, but they can go right back to garblin' Franny's tunes after a little nightcap! It's the strangest thing," Lucille said. She would've started rambling along passionately about her scientific discoveries concerning her daughter-in-law's amphibians, but Clara looked so honestly bewildered that Cornelius cleared his throat and said, "Over there is one of Dad's brothers, Fritz."

"Oh, the one with his wife Petunia," Clara said immediately, glad that a subject had been produced that she could actually understand. Though, being able to talk about a man with his puppet wife was a weird thing to understand . . .

"You've met him?" Cornelius asked, surprised.

"Yes, we became slightly acquainted with him and his hair-brained wife in the halls when Lefty took us to your lab," the Doctor piped up from his seat. He was befuddled, avoiding chunks of meat and carrot and trying to observe this strange family of humans, all buzzing with their separate conversations and arguments.

"Is he okay?" Clara asked in a gentle voice.

All their heads turned to see Fritz cowering over his plate as Petunia, holding a fork tightly in her wooden hand, yelled at her unfortunate husband, "Can't you cut a piece of meat?! You're so useless!"

"I'm sorry, dear," Fritz said, "I can only use one hand—"

"Do I look like I want to hear your stupid excuses?!" Petunia demanded of him. She grumbled and folded her arms and turned away from him. "I like mac and cheese better!"

"I'll tell Carl so he can prepare it tomorrow for you, dear," Fritz said, not daring to raise his voice lest she bark back at him.

"You better, or else it'll be your head I'll be after!" Petunia said harshly.

All the heads turned away. Clara looked uneasy and Franny and Cornelius exchanged raised eyebrows and worried, tight smiles.

"They, um . . . have any kids?" Clara asked, hoping to get the conversation off the weirdo couple in the corner.

"Yes, actually," Franny said.

Cornelius pointed out his niece and nephew. "That's Tallulah," he said. She was young, had the slimmest waist Clara had seen on anyone, wore a black and white dressed and her head was framed with short orange hair. She was arguing with a younger man with orange hair as well, a white lab coat, and green-and-purple glasses. "And that's Laszlo," Cornelius said.

Clara pointed to the arguing siblings and said to the Doctor, "Look, he's wearing a yellow bow-tie."

"How cool," the Doctor said smoothly, with a small smile.

"That man over there is my other uncle, Uncle Joe," Cornelius said. Their eyes followed his finger to a very fat man encompassing the whole of a large, laid-back chair. He possessed a baby face and was being talked to in a simple, childish voice by a curly brown-haired woman, who wore a conductor's hat and seemed to understand his whimpers.

"And . . . who's that?" Clara asked, indicating the woman.

"Yes, Joe-Joe, Carl is bringing you your hot cocoa," the woman said in a brisk but kind voice.

"My Aunt Billie," Cornelius said.

There was a silence, as no one dared to say anything, lest it be taken as rude against obese Uncle Joe and his babying wife. Needless to say, Bud's brothers weren't the most functional of people.

Cornelius cleared his throat and said, "Well, that's everyone."

"Wait, son! You forgot my dog, Buster!" Bud said loudly.

"Dad, Buster is a dog, not a human family member," Cornelius pointed out.

"Yeah. True. He's not even here right now," Bud said. He pointed out a high window, from which sheets of brilliant sunlight poured in and spilled onto the dining room table. "He's outside right now, searching for bones."

"That probably means a lot of holes in the backyard," Franny said, frowning. Her eyes skimmed over to her left, to Wilbur, who realized what this meant.

"And guess who gets to fill them all back in?" Wilbur sighed and held up his head on his fist, his elbow digging into the dining room table. "Great."

"That's right, mister," Franny said authoritatively. She ate a bite of shepherd's pie before addressing the Time Lord, "So, Doctor, where are you and Clara from?"

"Well, that's a sort of vague question, Mrs. Robinson," the Doctor said, sitting up straight and wringing his hands together thoughtfully. Earthly food had lost his interest. "Er, Franny," he said.

She nodded, so he continued.

"The real question you should be asking is 'When are you from?'"

Everyone, even the argumentative Aunt Petunia and babyish Uncle Joe, turned to look at the Doctor. They'd lived in a household in which for four years they'd suffered through Cornelius's various prototypes of time machines, late nights, broken machines, fires and smoke, and failed attempts. And now the Doctor was asking a question relating to where he was from in time? They couldn't help being interested.

"'Cause the two questions have two entirely different answers," the Doctor said smoothly, pleased by the attention he was gathering. He raised an eyebrow and Clara, smiling, took his silent cue.

"Place-wise, I'm from Chiswick, London, Britain, Europe, Earth," Clara said. She pointed at the Doctor. "He's from a faraway planet called Gallifrey."

The Doctor hurried to speak before anyone could do more than utter an astonished gasp: he was an alien? "She's from two-thousand-thirteen and I'm from . . . dear me, I don't know. It's been a few hundred years, I know that," he said.

"There're a couple of centuries between us," Clara said, wiggling a finger between her and her floppy-haired partner-in-crime.

"Oh, give or take," the Doctor said flippantly.

"Rounded up," Clara said.

"A fairly good estimate," the Doctor said.

Clara and the Doctor smirked and looked around for reactions. Everyone was: shocked, astonished, amazed, awed, etc.

Surprisingly, Wilbur was the first to speak. "So what you're saying is that you're an alien from a distant planet with centuries separating us and you, and she's your time-traveling companion, and you have a time machine?"

"Yeah, that 'bout sums it all up," the Doctor said.

"Dad, that means that time travel IS possible," Wilbur said to his dad, excited.

Cornelius, having been slightly ranted at by the Doctor in his lab earlier, could only nod. "I know, son. He said something like that earlier."

"Can I see your time machine?" Wilbur asked eagerly.

Franny put an arm out before Wilbur could lean out and fall on his face on the table. "My son is not getting anywhere near a time machine," she said firmly.

"But Mom, that's all Dad's been doing for the past four years: building and tweaking with time machines!" Wilbur pointed out.

"Yes, your father. Not you," Franny said, raising an eyebrow, sounding dead serious.

Wilbur sighed and craned around his mother to appeal to his dad. "Dad, can't I at least see his time machine?"

Cornelius was half a second before giving in when Franny gave him a look. He cleared his throat and said to Wilbur, "Sorry, son. Whatever your mother says, goes."

Wilbur sat back in his chair and huffed, his arms folded over his shirt. "Figures," he muttered.

"There's no harm in him just looking at it," Clara said, appealing on his behalf. She knew the ways of a child and liked to give them stuff that wouldn't make them bitter, but cheerful people. She liked being on children's good sides.

Franny cleared his throat and seemed hesitate to say her next sentence. "He's . . . prone to messing with timelines when he gets his hands on a time machine," she said.

Clara and even the brilliant Doctor were terribly confused. "I thought you hadn't gotten your time machine to work yet," Clara said slowly, worried she'd missed something.

"Not yet," Franny said, her hands gesticulating to try to make sense of what she was trying to say. She sighed. "My husband remembers from his childhood the future."

"You're a psychic?" Clara asked, uncertain, to Cornelius.

"No," Cornelius said. He frowned at his son. "It's just that Junior here, in a year, is going to mess with my timeline."

Wilbur sighed and waved a hand. "See, they get mad at me for doing it, yet I _have_ to do it to to retain the time-stream that was happening when my dad saw his future self a year from now," he rambled, annoyed.

"Okay, that made no sense. At all, really," Clara said. She leaned back in her seat and sighed, exhausted. "This is even worse than having him trying to explain things to you." She pointed to the Doctor, who said, "Oi!"

"It's complicated," Wilbur said, sighing.

"Yeah, you could say that again," Clara said, sitting back and unsure what to think. Fortunately, Carl had impeccable timing; the second course came promenading out of the kitchen door, a delicious cheese course, with bright, crunchy grapes and golden brown rolls. Clara decided to focus on the food rather than the timey-wimey hullabaloo around her.

The Doctor, however, pounced immediately on this. "Are you saying that Cornelius remembers Wilbur entering and messing about with his time-stream?" he asked Franny.

"Yes," Franny said. "Cornelius remembers from his childhood that Wilbur will bring him into the future."

"With a dinosaur," Cornelius supplied cheerfully, as he spread some of an herbed cheese ball on a cracker.

"And you know, for certain, (it has to be for certain, or else terrible, awful consequences could arise), that Wilbur uses Cornelius's invented, absolutely, positively working time machine to take a younger Cornelius to his own future?" the Doctor asked, his voice tentative, as if he was treading on eggshells, something he loathed to do.

"Yes," Franny and Cornelius said in calm, casual unison.

The Doctor sat back in his seat, a thin, long hand running through his floppy hair. Clara looked up from her delicate glass plate full of grapes and buttered rolls and chewing, said softly, "What's that look?"

"What look?" the Doctor said distractedly, as if he couldn't understand why he was answering Clara's little, stupid question at all.

"The distressed, burdened one. You've got it a lot, when you know too much," Clara said quietly. "What is it, Doctor?" she ventured.

Cornelius, Franny, and even Wilbur, who'd been chasing some rolling-away grapes across the table, looked up at the Doctor with expectant looks.

"You know what that means, don't you, Clara?" the Doctor asked softly.

"It means that'll happen, despite your best efforts to stop him from building a time machine," Clara said. She stopped chewing and weighed the finality, the heavy weight of her words. She had no appetite anymore.

**Review? :))**

**Thanks for reading! God bless you!**


	5. Success

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons.**

"Wait, you were going to try to stop Dad from building his time machine?!" Wilbur gasped, horrified.

"But he has to!" Franny said, before the Doctor could open his mouth. "It's part of his future. Unless he wants it messed up even further, he needs to keep with destiny. It needs to happen."

The Doctor shook his head. Stupid creatures, humans. Why did he like them so much? They were stubborn, persistent, like children who thought they knew exactly what was right for them. They would need to have a time machine for Wilbur to use to transport young Cornelius to the future in about a year, yes, but what other uses would they find for the time machine afterwards? Would they use it to mess up other timestreams, while calling it 'destiny' to justify their disruption of future history?

Franny had a definite point, though. Since the time machine's existence and ability to work were inevitable, the time machine had to be built. The Doctor could yell and pursue to the best of his ability, but the time machine needed to be built. It was inevitable.

"Yeah, yeah, the time machine needs to be built," the Doctor said.

"Does this mean you'll help him, Doctor?" Clara asked.

All eyes turned to her. Her eager brown eyes were focused on the Doctor.

"I mean, you know so much about time and space. If Cornelius's time machine has to work, why don't you help him?" she wondered, with a little chuckle. "It's not like you couldn't help him."

"Maybe I don't want to help him," the Doctor said. "Maybe I should let him flounder around until he happens upon a correct formula in a few months."

Cornelius, a world-renown scientist, pressed his lips into a thin line; he didn't appreciate the Doctor saying he 'floundered' just because it'd been four years since he first woke up in the middle of the night with a need to build a time machine.

Clara shook her head, looking for all the world that she knew something the Doctor didn't. "No. No, you'll help him."

"You sound awfully certain I will," the Doctor said cockily.

"Maybe because I am," Clara said. "That's what you do, Doctor. That's what keeps you going. You help people. Also," she said, taking up her glass of water and taking a refreshing sip, "I know you. You can barely sit still for a moment. You can't stay on the sidelines. You'll be over his shoulder in a second, grumbling to yourself, your arms all folded, before you jump right in." She raised an eyebrow in mischief.

She knew him too well.

"No, I won't," the Doctor said. He was a mysterious, centuries-old distant alien. He didn't like being known so much, especially by an Earth human girl.

"Oh, I guarantee it," Clara said, sounding far too certain, making the Doctor uncomfortable. "If I was a betting woman, I'd bet against you. And I'd win." She finished her glass and set it down with a sense of accomplishment.

The Doctor harrumphed, but of course, Clara knew him. So he humbled himself a little by throwing up his hands and said, "Oh, all right! Fine! I'll help Cornelius with his time machine! But only because you wouldn't let me alone about it!" His index finger pointed accusingly at Clara.

"Fine. Think that. Whatever helps you to sleep at night," Clara said, smirking.

Now that that was said aloud, the Doctor turned eagerly to Cornelius, rubbing his work-hungry hands together in anticipation. "Now, Cornelius, shall we go get started?" he asked hopefully.

"What about dessert?" Bud said curiously.

"Oh, yes, Carl's made a delicious pumpkin cake roll," Lucille said happily. She drew out of her pocket a little piece of paper reminiscent of a stamp. "Would you like a caffeine patch? I modified it to only one-eighth of its potency. It's excellent with dessert."

"Fine, dessert first," the Doctor grumbled, to the pleasure of the Robinson clan. He, however, declined the caffeine patch. "Um, could I have a cuppa of tea, perhaps? I explore with Brits, mostly. They rub off on me," the Doctor said. Then he noticed Clara's raised eyebrows and stuttered, hurrying to get back on her good side once more. "In the best way possible." He looked down, couldn't meet her eyes.

"_I'm_ not making it for you," Clara said, as the Carls came skipping and twirling in, bestowing the delicious dessert before their diners.

And with the cinnamon-spiced cake tasted, chewed, swallowed, and entirely consumed, the table broke up. Cornelius and the Doctor were heading up to the lab to look over blueprints, previous ones that had failed miserably, to note what mistakes to avoid making twice. Franny went off to practice hitting high notes with her frogs, and a party of Clara, Lucille, Bud, and Wilbur, who dragged along a sighing, reluctant Carl, headed off first to the front-and-back-yards for a full tour of the Robinson house. The rest of the assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins went off to their private activities while the mini Carls gathered dishes and wiped down the table.

"So, where are we off to first?" Clara wondered.

"Better start at the beginning; the entrance to the fabulous Robinson house: the front door," Wilbur said, directing his grandparents, best-friend/robot, and family guest towards the front door.

"Oh, that's how we got in," Clara said. "Those two, Dimitri and Spike, who are they related to?"

"Haven't a clue," Wilbur said.

Bud and Lucille murmured in agreement. In keeping with their old legs, the party's pace was kept at a comfortable one.

"They've always been there," Lucille said.

"Just kinda appeared one day and never left," Bud said.

Clara was surprised/not surprised that only now the matriarch and patriarch of the Robinson family pondered the weirdness surrounding their doormen. In short, she said no word about them, merely shrugged, and decided to venture on a topic she'd been wondering about ever since she'd first walked these halls. "So, when did Cornelius invent these tubes?" She indicated the clear tubes maybe ten to twelve feet away from the floor, only a meter or so away from her head. They disappeared into the ceiling, and Clara thought it must be like a hamster's maze in that ceiling. It certainly had to be a thick ceiling/second floor's floor, for a tube that was wide enough for a human to zip through it was in it.

"I was seven when Dad came up with that idea," Wilbur said.

"Oh, Wilbur. Always calculating history according to his own age," Lucille said, like it was adorable.

"Grandma," Wilbur groaned.

"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you," Lucille said determinedly, picking up her pace down the hallway. Clara supposed that there wasn't a tube that picked someone up from the dining room to the foyer. Indeed, as they rounded a corner, she saw the front door and searched the front door for any depositing tube; she found none.

"Anyway," Wilbur said, "Dad was helping me with creating a creative living space for my hamster, Newton, may he rest in peace." He gave a slight look up to the ceiling, indicating the fate of his hamster, and Clara felt disappointed: she liked tiny animals. "That triggered a thought, an idea, in Dad's head; 'Why not have tubes around the house for people to go through?' Obviously, since crawling through a tube was inadvisable, he created a vacuum suction device that pulls the person through." Wilbur sounded extremely proud of his father's genius.

"So you go through one of the tubes to another room," Clara said slowly. She earned a nod from Wilbur, which told her that she was following correctly, and she continued, "Does the person zoomin' through have some sorta, I dunno, control or something that lets them go into a particular room? Say you take a tube from the lab and you want to go to the dining room. Can you choose to go to the dining room? Goodness, are there intersections up there? Does anyone ever get stuck?" Clara said, pointing up to the ceiling, incredulous and curious.

Bud, Lucille, Wilbur, and Carl all shook their heads. "That would be uncomfortable," Carl said.

"No, see, young lady," Bud said, putting a grandfatherly arm around her short shoulders, "the tubes don't intersect at all. All the tubes are parallel."

Lucille nodded in affirmation. "The tube from Cornelius's lab goes down to the garage. One of the tubes in the garage goes up to his lab. It's a one-way ticket."

"That limits one's choices, doesn't it?" Clara pointed out.

Wilbur went forward and opened the front door, wide, for everyone. "Yeah, but it saves you a lot of time and pain down the stairs. Sometimes I go to the lab to use that tube downstairs because I can't be bothered with the stairs."

Clara decided to take all of this with a grain of salt as they all walked onto the long steps of the front porch. Clara looked from flower pot to flower pot, and smirked to herself when she noticed that slight snores were coming from either one of them. No one was entering the house; therefore there was no need for an argument over the doorbells. "Why are these two"—Clara pointed one of her hands at each one—"so obsessed with getting people to ring their bells?"

Lucille, Bud, Carl, and Wilbur all shrugged. "Don't know," they all said.

Clara shrugged and decided that sometimes there just weren't any answers to some questions.

They stepped off the beaten path to take a look-over the fresh, dark-green lawn. Clara saw large circles of the grass in different colors compared to the rest of the lawn. A few of the circles were a dark, darker green. Some a puce purple.

"Are those space circles?" Clara asked curiously, pointing to the different colored circles. "Like, alien spaceships?"

"No," Bud said cheerfully. He grabbed her hand and dragged her, stumbling, down the hill, and he performed a fantastic leap for an old man across and landed atop one of the circles. "These are even better!"

"C'mon, Carl!" Wilbur shouted as he ran down as well.

Carl groaned and said, walking slowly down the hill, "Why do I always listen to you?"

Clara's breath felt knocked out of her as Bud pulled her up; she found her legs springing from the ground and pressing against the squishy, spongy surface of the puce colored circle. To her surprise, the ground sunk in, like a trampoline. She came flying up, screaming and gasping and laughing all at once.

Bud let her hand go and jumped, squatting like a determined frog, across to a pink circle.

Clara couldn't imagine why Cornelius would invent something like this; other than the feeling of exhilaration that spread throughout her entire buoyant body, it presented no real practical solution to . . . anything.

But for once, Clara decided to not care. She determinedly pressed hard against the pliant surface and pounced forward onto another circle, following Bud, Wilbur, and a reluctant Carl across the yard. Lucille watched with a smile and began to walk at her determined pace, pleased that her invention of spongy yard circles had pleased their guest.

* * *

"Cornelius, normally I don't repeat myself—and I don't like repeating myself, but I've got to; I've got to get the answers to the questions I've asked a billion times and haven't received an answer to yet," the Doctor said, as they climbed the mass of stairs into the brightly lit lab. The sun's rays were fading softly, as evening approached and darkness came to swallow up; the light was fading, but gently, softly.

Cornelius raised an eyebrow and said, his fingers playing with a screwdriver on a metal tray, "You haven't asked a billion times. It was only twice."

"Do you mind answering my questions, Cornelius, or are you completely dead set against me finding out the truth?" the Doctor asked, his hands laying smack on a craft table. The Doctor sighed tiredly and said in a hopeful voice, "How did you harness the time energy and where did you get it from?"

Cornelius nodded. Both appeared dejected, as if they were tired of this subject already. Which, they were. The Doctor hung around his time machine for hundreds of years and Cornelius's life was marred by the hundreds of failures credited to his name.

"I harnessed the time energy using the same idea of a magnet. A negative attracts a positive," Cornelius said, "so I constructed an object that would attract its opposite; an inanimate object that can contain the strongest of forces, of energies. I call it the Impenetrable." He walked to his time machine and laid down on the creeper. The Doctor came over and peeked under the bumper, watching and waiting for Cornelius to point out the—the thing, the Impenetrable. Cornelius flashed up a torch and said as the white circle of light displayed a thick disc, perhaps the thickness of a book, "This. This holds the time energy. The time energy is an active thing, all time and space swirling in it. It's attracted to an inanimate, silent box. I simply let some of the energy pour in and sealed it tight. Then I attached it to this coronary system, which runs through the entirety of the time machine, like blood vessels through a body. The time energy fills the entire machine; it's not dormant, but it doesn't try to escape. I've created a system for the used energy to be recycled and brought back as time energy as well. I scooped up only about a cup of it, and it keeps getting remade. The quantity never changes."

The Doctor remained silent through this; Cornelius's idea was stupidly simple, and yet, surprisingly, it worked. A never-ending, always-moving energy found its home in an inanimate thick disc.

Cornelius wheeled out and looked up at the Doctor's thoughtful, old face. "Does that answer your question, Doctor?" he wondered.

"Yes," the Doctor said. Before he embarked on questions about the time machine and how exactly it wasn't working out, and how he could remove those by simply removing them from previous blueprints, he needed one more answer to settle his mind. "Okay. Now, answer me this, Cornelius. Where'd you get the time energy?"

Cornelius sighed and stood up. He scratched the back of his neck and said, "I came across it by accident." He walked past the Doctor, past his time machine and many of his other inventions. A large white curtain covered a good chunk of the wall, and Cornelius grasped the hem of it. He turned back to the Doctor and said, "It came across me."

He pulled down, hard, on the white curtain, and it fluttered heavily down into a long, narrow pile on the ground. What it covered was revealed as a long, crooked cut across the mild-colored wall. No, actually, not a black, glowing cut. It was a crack. A familiar crack that sent a flare of remembrance of the past through the Doctor; memories of his new face and fish sticks and custard and Amelia Pond in a little night gown and red jacket and evil apples; memories of running his sonic screwdriver along the length of the mysterious crack in the little girl's bedroom, and seeing it in a thousand places a thousand times afterwards.

The Doctor stepped toward it cautiously. Cornelius backed away from the murmuring crack and the fallen curtain, and looked for a reaction from the Doctor. All he got were slow steps and a distant shadow over the Time Lord's face.

"A crack," the Doctor whispered, his own voice cracking as he said the words. His fingers stroked along the crack, never quite touching the potent, dangerous time energy that burned and bubbled and shined from underneath the wall.

"It just appeared one day," Cornelius said quietly, as if he was trying to explain things, even thought the Doctor seemed to not hear him, lost in a trance instead. "I was working out the kinks in my blueprints and decided that since it burned with an energy, might as well store it in an inanimate object for observation. I plugged it into my time machine out of four years' of desperation. It works."

The Doctor said slowly, "What do you mean, it works?" as he turned to face the exhausted Cornelius. "You've got your time machine working?"

"Almost," Cornelius said. He nodded toward a wide, white table and walked to it, prompting the Doctor to follow him. He did so, and Cornelius's hand spread out a fan of bright blue, white-scratched plans, all meticulously thought-out and all ultimately failures. He pointed to the current time machine's blueprint. "The time energy works; I'm on the edge of figuring out the last key component to make it work."

"And what's that, Cornelius?" The Doctor wondered. "A step away from a hard-learned success. What is this step?"

"I can't get the time energy to fully encompass the entire machine," Cornelius said, sighing as he pushed up his glasses and explained further. "When I turn it on to a certain set of coordinates in time, the time energy will pull the rest of the machine to that date, right?"

"That's the idea," the Doctor said, following, nodding.

"Well, it doesn't. It takes the innards of the time machine to that date, but leaves important things, like the windshield and the passengers' seats and the wheels that allow it to stand well on runaways. When I go some place, I want all of the time machine to go there as well," Cornelius said. "But so far, I can't find a way. I explained to you the coronary system. But that appears to not be enough." Cornelius scratched the back of his neck and sighed.

The Doctor, however, smiled brightly. "Oh, I have a simple solution to that problem, Cornelius." He gestured to the time machine, said, "May I?"

"Oh, please; have at it," Cornelius said, ready for anything.

The Doctor grinned and ran over and laid down on the creeper. He pushed himself backward with his huge feet and the strange sound of a blaring device resounded through the large room, which was now covered with the darkening sky and peeping stars.

"What are you doing?" Cornelius wondered, ducking his head under the time machine.

"Amplifying!" the Doctor said enthusiastically. He flipped off his device and held it out for a look-see. "My sonic screwdriver. Makes time machines more time-machine-y, sugar sweeter, sarcastic people ever better, and bananas bananaier!"

"Who needs a bananaier banana?" Cornelius said, as the Doctor swiped the sonic screwdriver away and continued with his amplifying of the time energy throughout the time machine.

The Doctor pulled himself out from underneath the time machine with a pouty face. "Who doesn't?" he finally said, before kicking himself back under it.

Cornelius waited the painstaking few minutes for the Doctor to cast his sonic screwdriver's spell under the time machine, all over its belly; then he came rolling out and sitting straight up, like a strange resurrected corpse from some horror film. His grin would've been terrifying to the less informed.

"Let's test it out," the Doctor said.

"Now?" Cornelius asked, surprised. "Um," he deferred to his clipboard, "shouldn't I run some tests or at least inspect it?"

"But whatever happened to discovering science recklessly, throwing yourself in like, 'Oh, what the heck!'" the Doctor said, thunking Cornelius's arm good-naturedly. He said, "Now, throw open the way into the cab. I know the perfect place to go."

Cornelius felt the excitement building within him; finally, after four years, he could be flying into either the fantastic future or the memory-ridden past! So his better sense was overcome by his need for a win and so he withdrew a key chain from his lab coat pocket and used one of the keys to unlock the windshield.

"Might want to ditch the key and add a button or a code or something," the Doctor said. When Cornelius looked up in surprise, the Doctor shrugged. "Just a suggestion," he said softly.

The two men went throwing themselves in, buckling themselves down into the comfy, leather seats and facing forward, towards the long, descending set of stairs.

"Wait, shouldn't we be bringing Clara?" Cornelius wondered. "And, oh, I should tell Franny . . ."

"Your wife is off teaching some talented amphibians music. She shouldn't be bothered. What, do you think Clara will want to see this because Clara may well be impressed? Don't be flattered; she's ridden in a time machine a time or two before, I can promise you that."

"Fine. So, um, where are we going?" Cornelius wondered, eying all the great instruments all spread about before him. Then he looked at the Doctor questioningly, waiting for him to tell him what to do.

"Oh, fine, I'm planning a bit of a test," the Doctor said. He punched in the numbers and coordinates and then sat back; the windshield resumed its spot over their heads as waves of time energy began to encircle them, wrapping in circles all about the time machine. Cornelius grinned in amazement, but then leaned forward to look at the date and place where they were to land.

"Um, Doctor . . . !"

But then they simply vanished out of the lab, the Doctor shouting enthusiastically at the top of his lungs, "Geronimo!"

**:) Thanks for reading! God bless you!**


	6. Gathered Together and OFF WE GO

_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or Meet the Robinsons. This is the last chapter, everyone!**

The time machine popped up in the year 2036, in the city of Todayland, a little ways from a convenience store. Cornelius had grabbed any of the time machine for anchorage, and his mouth was open wide and his knuckles white against the instruments of the time machine. The Doctor sat in the passenger's seat, his arms behind his head, a comfortable, relaxed expression on his face. As they slowly dipped down into the early fall night, he turned to Cornelius and said calmly, "Don't ya think that you should start steering your time machine so we don't take a fantastic nose-dive into the ground and die?"

Cornelius opened and closed his mouth, but he quickly grasped the handles of the steering mechanism and drew it up, saving them from their untimely deaths. He didn't say a word but pressed his lips together into a tight line as the Doctor pointed ahead, excited. "Oh, park right there! That's where I've got my TARDIS. My time machine."

Cornelius's time machine was successfully parked; the landing was shaking, jittery, and slow, but nobody was severely injured, and neither was the machine damaged or even crumpled in any way. "Nice landing, for your first time," the Doctor said, pointing to the steering mechanism once the time machine had come to a full and complete stop. "Though, you left the brake on." The Doctor rid himself of his seatbelt and once the windshield was up and over their heads, he launched himself over to the side and ran to his TARDIS. He smacked his big hands against her panels affectionately before he pulled out a key and began to bargain for entrance with her doorknob.

"How was that a test? What year are we in? I just saw my house," Cornelius said, panting as he caught up with his excitable house guest.

"It was a test because we only tested the time machine on ONE aspect," the Doctor said. He slapped the doorknob and said to the TARDIS angrily, "Will you let me in?"

"Which aspect?" Cornelius said, breathless and tired of this Time Lord.

"There are two aspects to a time machine: the time part and the space part," the Doctor said. He grunted and threw his TARDIS a glare and gave her a swift kick to the front door. His mouth opened widely and he cursed as he cradled his bruised foot in his hands. The key stuck silently in the doorknob as the Doctor recovered himself and threw Cornelius a rolling of the eyes. "Give a guess at what aspect we tested on. Really." The Doctor anchored his foot against the TARDIS firmly and bit his tongue and twisted and pushed and threw himself into the TARDIS, exclaiming, "Tell me when you change the lock, dear!"

"So we traveled in space, but remain in the same time as a few minutes ago?" Cornelius said, hurrying after the Doctor. But then he stopped in shock; his hands caught the guardrail, which kept him from slumping in amazement. His delighted, critical eyes took in the console room of the TARDIS, how it was dark and shadowed in some places but otherwise glowing with an ethereal light in others. He saw the Gallifreyan language etched into metal plating above his head; he saw the blue, red, and yellow circles glowing with bright light. Saw the countless instruments and screens adorning the console of the TARDIS. Suddenly his own time machine didn't seem so impressive.

"Wait, I just had a thought," the Doctor said. He gesticulated with his hands, pointing from one side of the ground to the other. "Technically, a time machine travels only in time, right?"

"It's—it's so much BIGGER in here," Cornelius stammered.

"Oh, we're on that usual bit? The shock factor, yes, my TARDIS is bigger than her exterior would have you think. Can I get on with my explaining thing?"

Cornelius nodded, probably to get the Doctor going, off his back; he was still encompassed in a state of shock and amazement.

"Anyway, back to my ramblings: your machine runs on the energy that Time Lords use to travel in time and space. Congratulations! Your time machine is now a spaceship! Probably should work out a few tinkerings with the gravity and air bubble and I'd recommend storing a good bit of grub under the seats for the days when you just don't feel like landing—"

"It's bigger on the inside!" Cornelius said, staggering.

For once, the Doctor didn't rush off into kidnapping the latest human he'd unwittingly lured into his TARDIS; he didn't give an annoyed joke at the human's expense; he didn't even say a word. Instead he smiled, in his quiet, old-souled way. This famous scientist was amazed by something, and that pleased him. Humans, after all, are finite. They're limited in their thinking. They cannot truly see everything, or even imagine the possibilities of what could be. To think that this human genius, this boy prodigy, could still be amazed made the old Time Lord smile.

"Want to see how she works?" the Doctor asked kindly.

Cornelius could only nod as he scrambled to the console. His excitement reminded the Doctor of a child eager to learn a new skill.

And the Doctor was a grandfather. He knew how to please curious children.

* * *

"Oh, it's gorgeous," Clara said in a tired, happy voice. She sat on the non-spongy green grass, her legs bent before her, her arms stretched out behind her. Her hands dug into the soft earth. She felt exhausted after the tour she'd just received.

After their trampolining escapades, Bud, Lucille, Wilbur, Carl, and Clara had walked into the garage and proceeded to not touch many of the time machine prototypes that'd made Cornelius's hope grow into a false one as each ended up as an epic fail. Major confidence un-booster to Cornelius, _but he never gave up!_ After examining the future of garages, Clara found herself unwittingly beneath one of the massive suction tubes; before she could say a single word or even emit a shriek, she zoomed up, her knee-length dress blown flat around her legs. She gasped and felt herself move and twist and turn in the see-through tubes. The tube system was lit with a white fluorescent light, allowing her to see all the parallel traveling tubes as she whizzed by. She was deposited onto her feet in Cornelius's lab. His . . . time-machine-empty, Time-Lord-Famous-Scientist-free lab.

"Doctor?" she asked, ducking her head about tables riddled with countless ideas and hours' of work and frowned. "Cornelius? Hullo? Mr. Robinson?" A wide grin split her face; she laughed and said, "Oh, I see. Good job, Doctor! I knew you could figure it out!" Her grin calmed down and she whispered, as if he could hear her, "I always knew you could fix things, like any good Doctor can." She began to walk around the area, not sure what her next move should be: wait for the Doctor and Cornelius to return from their test drive? Wait for Wilbur, Carl, Bud, or Lucille to come falling down the tube after her? Well, she decided to first turn on a light switch. She could imagine that it had been too light outside for any interior light to be put on before this. So she searched in the shadows and then stopped, her eyes immediately drawn to the open crack bleeding white light. She stared, the light glinting off her eyes.

"What's that?" she whispered.

"Whoaaaaaaa!" she heard echoing above her. Clara twisted her head up to see Wilbur land on bent knees right where the tube let out. He dusted off his jeans and said, "Hey, so, um, Dad doesn't actually like it when we're in here. I know; it's pretty sweet. But Mom doesn't want me around all the time stuff and whatever, and well, Mom rules the house."

"So you're not allowed in here; she didn't say I couldn't come in," Clara quipped.

Wilbur's index finger was raised. "THAT is an excellent point," he said, his voice dropping from enthusiastic to 'ohhhhhh'.

"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" came from the tube above them.

"Carl's joining you?" Clara said, smiling, her arms folded.

"He's a rebel, that guy," Wilbur said as Carl screamed and fell into a pile of spindly limbs on the floor. He stood up and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Remind me to never listen to you again," he said as he came apace to Wilbur.

"Will do," Wilbur said cheerfully.

Lucille and Bud came careening down through the tube. Clara was mightily alarmed that their old people limbs would give out and she and Wilbur would have the unfortunate duty of informing the household the unhealthy state of Cornelius's parents, but the air somehow changed density as it poured out of the tube onto the floor, and they landed softly on the floor, as if stepping off a cloud.

Lucille and Bud leaned on each other, laughing in great guffaws and suppressed giggles.

"You two okay?" Clara inquired, concerned.

"I haven't had that much fun in years!" Bud said cheerfully. "Lucille, let's do that again!"

"Ohhh, let's you not," Clara said. She spied around and raised eyebrows towards the ground to indicate to the clueless Wilbur the loss in the room.

He promptly properly noticed and, dumbfounded, said, "Ummm, guys? Where's the time machine?"

Lucille and Bud caught their breath and peered around and Carl, who had turned on a light switch, said, "Okay. I don't know. Where's the time machine?"

"I don't know, Carl! It's gone!" Wilbur said, gesticulating and appearing extremely horrified.

"C'mon, Wilbur. That's not a very good punchline," Carl said. He chuckled and then his bronze face drew down and he groaned, wiping a hand down his face. "Oh, who am I kidding? WILBUR, THE TIME MACHINE; IT'S GONE!"

"Wow, dang, I hadn't noticed!" Wilbur said hysterically.

Carl began to have a mental metal breakdown, his hands gripping down the sides of his face, when Clara stepped between them. "Hey, hey, whoa down there. Drama, much? The time machine's gone. You know what that means?"

"There's a really sneaky robber around here?" Carl asked weakly.

"That must mean that Dad and the Doctor got the time machine to work!" Wilbur said excitedly. Then he scowled. "And they took it on a test drive." He was obviously still sore over the fact that his mother had denied him access into the time machine—ever.

"Where do you think they went?" Carl wondered.

"Oh, maybe a thousand years into the future!" Lucille thought.

"Perhaps they went to hang out with the early Egyptians," Bud said excitedly.

"Perhaps we gotta step back from the landing pad in case they come back any time soon," Clara said pointedly. They calmly agreed and stepped out of the way around a table full of fantastic, bubbling graduated cylinders. Clara looked nervously back at the mystical, glowing crack, but decided to not say a word. If no one came up here regularly, what if they didn't know about it and they could not only not answer her questions, but they'd be brought to the attention of something Cornelius mightn't want them to see. Clara simply supposed there'd be foul consequences of her bringing up the point of the crack at all, so she sealed her lips shut and waited for the Doctor and Cornelius to come back.

* * *

Cornelius exchanged a curious, eager, waiting look with the Doctor, who smiled and nodded. Cornelius's hands then rapidly criss-crossed around the console; he walked around and flicked levers, pressed buttons, and gazed at screens as they twisted and turned through the time vortex.

"Now, the brakes, like I told you," the Doctor said in a teacher's voice.

Cornelius obediently did so. "Like that?" he asked.

The Doctor nodded with that same patient smile. "Atta boy, Cornelius. You're a natural at this. Before you know it you'll have your own time machine at your fingertips to do your every beck and call."

"I know it inside and out," Cornelius said. He breathed, happy, and said, "You don't know what a relief this is, Doctor. I've been trying to build a functional time machine for four and a half years."

"And now you've got one," the Doctor said as the brakes began their usual hold on the TARDIS's landing system, sending the old, comfortable landing signal echoing through the many extensive rooms of the TARDIS.

"To tell you the truth, Doctor," Cornelius said as he followed the Time Lord to the door of the TARDIS, "I'd like to hurry and build a second one."

"A second one? Why the bloody—why would you need another one? Just like a human: 'Oh, I've finally built myself a time machine. I think I'll build myself another one!'" the Doctor mused, vexed and perplexed as he opened the door leading out.

"Because I have to build a second one," Cornelius said urgently. They stepped out of the TARDIS to a rainy night maybe half a year into Cornelius's near future. The light rain fell all around and Cornelius pointed out a bent figure robed in a poncho against the rain. He held in his hand a trash can. "See that?" he said, half-proud and half-disappointed, "that's my son, Wilbur."

"Probably a stupid question, but why are we out here in the pouring rain watching Wilbur take out the rubbish? Sort of a rubbish plan, isn't it?" the Doctor said, his hands roofing pathetically over his hair as a protective means to keep his head dry.

"I chose this date to prove a point, Doctor," Cornelius said seriously. The two watched as Wilbur left the garage door open and an ugly, gaunt figure slipped into the garage. A few silent moments later revealed to the Doctor a surprising development; a bright blue time machine was stolen out of the garage; it disappeared out in a wink. "My old roommate from the orphanage stole my time machine," he said quietly. "That's part of my time-stream. He does that. I can't change it. So I have to make that time machine for him to steal."

"I'm not going to lie; that sounds rather stupid, specifically making a time machine for your old roommate to steal," the Doctor said.

"It stems into something bigger; mostly a change in my entire life and also his reformation," Cornelius said, his tone stern and assertive. "It's part of my timeline. Now, I know now you're not supposed to mess around with time-streams. So I won't mess with it; I'll keep to it, keep it canon. I need to do that."

The Doctor recalled his earlier conversation with Clara, how she'd been annoyed that he'd thought the entire human race would alter their time-streams if their grubby little hands got on such technology; and here before him was a man who wanted to insure the canonicity of his time-stream. He had a point; the only way to keep his life un-messed up by results of playing with time was to, well, mess with a time machine.

"I suppose, then, that I've got no argument that can win against that," the Doctor said softly.

Wilbur looked, horrified, at the spot where the bright blue time machine was. The poor kid made a mistake. The Doctor then thought for a moment whether the guards who'd been keeping an eye on the vast supply of TARDISes had gotten into trouble when one turned up missing.

Cornelius sighed deeply as they watched Wilbur run back into the house in a state of panic. "That's all, Doctor," he said, turning to the Time Lord. They were both completely soaked, yet both were at peace. "I just wanted you to see that."

"C'mon," the Doctor said, friendly. "Let's get back into my TARDIS and go back to your house. I've a talk to have with you concerning that crack in the wall, though, before I leave."

"You're going to leave?" Cornelius said, surprised.

"Oh, well, yes. See, Clara and I have been up for nineteen hours and while I could do a marathon right about now and still skip at the end, she's only human." The Doctor shrugged. "She needs to get recharged, like a laptop. Besides," he said in a jovial voice, his arm around Cornelius's shoulder as they trooped back into the TARDIS, "I haven't detected any mysterious noises, smells, or occurrences, besides that crack, that I haven't solved. No dangerous nemeses from my past that I've already obliterated coming back to haunt me. No, actually, for despite all the weirdness concerning the finding of different time substances and whatnot, it's been an absolutely uncommon sort of day."

Cornelius looked bewildered as the Doctor opened the TARDIS's door. "Un-extraordinary?" he said, dumbfounded.

The Doctor shrugged, looking bored. "I feel somewhat disgruntled by the lack of activity, but, ohhhh, can't complain about a day of rest." And they stepped inside.

* * *

"Wilbur, put that down!" Carl said nervously as Wilbur practiced juggling full graduated cylinders. The boy bite his lip and grinned as his hands moved and caught the falling objects, launching them into the air once more.

"Oh, stop worrying, Carl," Wilbur said. "I got this!" Even as he said that, he had a close call from a cylinder full of a lemonade colored mixture.

Carl bit his metallic fingernails and moaned when he saw Bud and Lucille wearing protective goggles and walking around a jumping invention. Their hands pulled pencils across their clipboards as they marked down fascinating observations. Carl didn't hurry to reprimand them, though. They were Cornelius's parents, while Wilbur was just a kid, and his friend, and his charge, who never listened to him.

Clara had scooted off, sneaking away from the notice of Carl, to investigate the giant crack in the white wall. Something on the other side of the wall bent and flowed, almost as if it was blood trying to leach out of a wound. But it didn't. Something was holding it back. Curious as she was, Clara was glad it was being held back.

Her fingers pressed along the wall surrounding the cut. She didn't dare to move them to touch the cracked, blackened edges, too afraid of some bad reaction she could incur onto herself. She pressed her lips together and gasped when she heard a familiar warbling noise. She turned, her hair and skirt swishing, as Cornelius successfully parking his now fully-operational time machine in its usual spot.

Clara stepped forward, concerned, as Cornelius stepped out. Wilbur crowded around the windshield, saying, "Okay, wow, that was REALLY cool, Dad. You won't mind if I take it for a spin?" He already had one leg over into the cockpit.

Cornelius frowned and grabbed Wilbur by his collar and lifted him out of the time machine's cockpit. "Nice try, son," he said as they climbed back down onto the floor.

Wilbur sighed. "Yeah. I guess so," he said mournfully.

"Hi, yeah, sorry. Where's the Doctor? Where'd he go?" Clara said, pointing to the empty cockpit. "You didn't leave him in some sort of weird land? Or did he disappear in a shower of particles or whatever on the trip?" Clara looked scared, as if that was an actual possibility.

The excited laugh and a "Geronimo!" echoed through the tube, preceding an explanation from Cornelius. The Doctor came tumbling down, falling into a tangled heap of limbs. He groaned as he stood up and dusted himself off. "That was a FANTASTIC invention, Cornelius. Eight of ten, would recommend. You should put a height limit or an age limit or something on it, though." The Doctor looked up from whence he came. his face and nose all wrinkly. "Not recommended for pregnant women or people with heart or weight problems." His head tilted back to a normal angle and he rubbed his hands together and smiled and said, "Hullo, Clara."

"How'd you come out of that tube?" Clara said in a curious, no-nonsense voice.

"I obviously entered through another tube," the Doctor said, teasing.

"Are you playin' me? Did you even go time-traveling at all in Cornelius's time machine?" Clara wondered.

"I did, actually. I like to do it in my spare time," the Doctor said, his fingers running down his purple jacket as a way of habit.

"C'mon; spare me the bait and hook," said Clara.

The Doctor breathed in deep and a little upturned corner of his lips indicated his mood. "Cornelius and I took his new, totally-working time machine to the TARDIS, about thirty minutes ago. I let him test drive the TARDIS and then we both drove back in separate vehicles."

"Where's the TARDIS right now?" Clara wanted to know.

"She's lounging in the Robinson family living room. I had a heck of a time findin' the right tubes up here."

"Yet here you are," Clara beamed.

"I'm smart. I figured it out." The Doctor smirked and winked at her.

"So, you got his time machine to work out for ya?" Clara wondered.

"Yes. And now he knows what to do and what not to do for his second one," the Doctor said.

"Oh. Second one. Got it," Clara said. Something dawned on her and she said softly, "Oh. That means we're done here, then."

"Yes." The Doctor extended the crook of his arm in a gentlemanly manner and said generously, "Would the lovely Miss Oswald let an old man escort her down to his inter-dimensional time machine?"

"I could have that arranged," Clara said mischievously. And arms linked, they forgoed the clear tubes for the good, old-fashioned staircase.

* * *

The sun's rays finished their fading altogether, leaving the living room of the Robinson household bathed in darkness, excepting a bright, cozy fire. Well, bright and cozy to the naked eye. However it was a summer evening, and the fire was no more than an ornamental projection rather than a flame casting off warmth to the cold patrons of the household.

There was a large sofa that took up the length of the entire room. Fat Uncle Joe sat in a coushy part of it; he listened to an animated conversation by an enthusiastic Aunt Billie while keeping on a mildly amused, drool-speckled face. Next to them was Uncle Fritz getting hounded by Aunt Petunia. who, as per usual, was greatly annoyed by his and everyone else's incompetence. She also somehow found the time to throw great shouts of unconstructive criticism at Laszlo and Tallulah, who were in each other's faces and pulling a cellular device to themselves and yelling at their sibling. Typical sibling affection.

Uncle Gaston tried to have a decent conversation about Italian food with Uncle Art, but the latter was far too consumed with his manager on the phone, arguing the side of the pizza deliverers on a debate of manually transporting versus teleporting pizzas.

Bud and Lucille sat together, their heads leaning on each other's shoulders. They seemed perfectly content and quiet amongst the chaos of their extended family.

Then Wilbur sat and argued with Carl, who grew more and more distressed as the conversation continued . . . and then Cornelius and Franny, who had wracked him for every single detail on his first successful time traveling experience. When everyone had heard he'd traveled with the Doctor, the moment he stepped into the living room he'd been flooded by everyone, even Uncle Joe. He hadn't told them where he'd gone (shh—spoilers), but an obvious raised eyebrow at Wilbur made everyone get ideas. But the moment they strayed away, Franny yanked him over and used her persuasive power over him to get answers.

And right by them sat a contented, tired Clara Oswald and a restless Doctor. Oh, Clara sat with her arms folded on her lap and her eyes blinking lazily in the firelight and sleep working its way through her. But the Doctor seemed as jumpy as a kid on the last day of school.

Clara noticed so and asked him in a quiet voice, "You all right, Doctor?"

"Oh, you know me. I'm tiptop, Clara." He smiled through his lie.

"What's eatin' you?" she wondered softly.

The Doctor sighed. He knew that if he stalled long enough, the lull of sleep would draw Clara's attention away from his diversion-ness, but somehow he found it better for him to get the worries off his chest instead of letting them fester inside him, something he was prone to do. "Clara, did you notice anything upstairs, in Cornelius's lab?" he whispered.

"That long, jagged crack? The thing that drew us here in the first place?" Clara whispered as well, understanding the importance of keeping hushedy-hush about it.

"Yes, that one," the Doctor said.

"What about it?" Clara said.

"That's time energy flowing through it," the Doctor whispered. "It's potentially dangerous, depending on who gets their hands on it. If Cornelius decides to make one more than one more time machine, decides that since he knows how to make them, why not mass produce them? Then the time energy's usage would turn the world to chaos. How should I exactly go about stopping that, Clara?"

Clara looked at him like he was stupid in the head. "That's an easy, dumb question, Doctor," Clara said. She frowned. "I expect better of you. I really do."

The Doctor looked slightly offended, but he'd run out of comebacks back at page two.

"It's simple," Clara said. "Goodness knows it's what I've been doing ever since I met you."

"If it's so simple, it won't be hard for you to explain your perfect-y-beyond-perfect solution," the Doctor said sullenly, like a child.

"You appeal to Cornelius's humanity, Doctor," Clara said in a calm, patient voice. She smiled and said, "Just ask him to not mass produce time machines. Tell him to take what he needs of the time energy and then cover the crack up, never let it be seen again. Matter o' fact, you can always seal the crack after he's taken the energy he needs for a second one."

"Would it deflate your ego at all if I said that that was the exact idea I was contemplating?" the Doctor said, leaning closer to her.

Clara's face screwed up in suppressed amusement. "In the exact words I explained it to you, or maybe just a bit of paraphrasing?"

"That last bit," the Doctor said.

"Not at all," Clara said.

The Doctor sighed and said, "Well, that's that then."

"What's that then?" Clara asked in a bantering way.

"The plan's like that then," the Doctor said,

Silence hung between them for a moment. The fake flames danced and faded against their faces.

"Is said plan gonna get carried out any time soon?" Clara whispered.

"I honestly don't feel like moving," the Doctor mused.

"C'mon," Clara said. She gave him a shove that sent him grumbling to his feet. "Go on. I wanna get home to my own bed. I haven't even taken off my makeup. You know how much of a pain that is, removin' makeup?"

"Yes, actually," the Doctor said, sounding offended that she thought him ignorant of the annoyance makeup was.

Clara gave him one of her amused, brilliant smiles, and the Doctor approached Cornelius and quietly, discreetly using his hands, explained his (Clara's) idea. Cornelius slowly nodded his head and Franny immediately agreed with the Doctor. Perhaps the full details of what Wilbur accidentally did and the foul consequences from such an innocent incident revealed to her the severity of the idea of allowing the common people to have access to time machines. The Doctor, who had blanched at the idea of something so wonderful as a time machine being mass produced for any human who was on a whim to buy themselves some amusement, was glad Franny was so wholeheartedly on his side.

The Doctor and Cornelius skedaddled out of sight to collect the energy for one last time machine; then the Doctor was going to try to patch up the crack the best he could so no more energy could leak through. Clara didn't go after him as she was oft to do. She was exhausted from the day. Sure, they didn't defeat some evil villain or save an alien planet as was sometimes on the Doctor's daily to-do list, but the day at Germoane and then learning so much about the next future decades of the human race made Clara want to fall asleep right there and then. Instead she blissfully smiled and watched the flames. No one disturbed her and the flames continued with their warm, crazy dance, and Clara smiled and dozed off for a long time. It could have been hours later when the Doctor gently shook her arm, saying under his breath, "Clara, oh, Clara. c'mon. The hay can be hit later."

"With what?" Clara asked, her eyes still closed.

The Doctor looked startled; he hadn't expected her to say that. "What?" he asked.

"What am I hitting the hay with? A hoe? A rake? Pitchfork? I think I got a pitchfork laying 'round my guestroom somewhere," Clara said wittily. She popped an eye open and grinned when she saw the Doctor looking horrified that he even mentioned the phrase.

"I don't know. Get up, will you," he said. He ran his fingers around the collar of his jacket as Clara stretched, yawned, and stood up, muttering to himself, "Stupid humans and their stupid phrases that don't make sense at all."

"Oh, are you two going?" Franny wondered as Cornelius joined her.

"Yeah. Clara's about to fall asleep on her feet, like a horse," the Doctor said, jerking a thumb to his companion.

"Hey. Compare me to a horse again. I dare you to," Clara said threateningly. She came to the Doctor's side and put her arm around the crook of his elbow, looking like a mother who'd caught her naughty son who'd ran off. "C'mon, darling."

"Be right there, sweetheart," the Doctor said, bantering along with her.

"I don't know how to thank you for helping me," Cornelius said. "It's been four plus years and now I've finally got it."

"Oh, don't thank me," the Doctor said, waving away the gratitude. "It was just me messing 'round with me screwdriver."

"Yeah, he does that anyway. You just happened to be there," Clara said.

"Thank you," Cornelius said sincerely.

"Maybe now he can get a good night's sleep," Franny said. She sounded relieved.

"It's been a pleasure to meet you, Franny, Cornelius," the Doctor said sincerely.

Clara shook hands with Carl, meanwhile. "Don't stay nervous, got it?" Clara said to him.

"Well, I'll try not to," Carl said, sounding somewhat dejected.

Wilbur cut in and shook Clara's hand, saying, "That was actually a nice time. You didn't seem surprised by all the future things. Like, it's awesome, but you didn't freak out. It was a little strange." He raised eyebrows.

"Don't be flattered, Wilbur," Clara said. "I've seen plenty more futuristic things than this."

Wilbur sighed. Then he asked curiously, "What's it like, flying in a time machine? I don't think I'll ever know, if Mom gets her way."

Clara smiled. Mothers. A far off look gathered in Clara's eye, and she managed to limit it to, "Flying in a time machine is simply magical. Because things you didn't think were possible, you find that they actually are." She grinned and ruined his haircut with an affectionate ruffle of his hair. "C'mon. Cheer up. You'll get your trip someday."

"You sound awfully sure about that," Wilbur said seriously.

"Maybe I am," Clara said. She turned to the Doctor before Wilbur could do more than raise an index finger and look surprised and said, "Into the TARDIS, Doctor?"

The Doctor heaved a heavy sigh and patted her hand on his arm. "Yes, I suppose it's time for the adventure to be over." He saluted to the entire Robinson family, who clambered onto the sofa to wave at them and say goodbye, and said, "Bye, all." And the tired human and the exhausted Time Lord walked into the telephone booth, which, with its blaring signal, roared and faded out of the Robinsons' living room until it completely disappeared.

**Thanks for reading! (Review?) God bless you!**


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